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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823696">Accountability</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/songohanfan1/pseuds/songohanfan1'>songohanfan1</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Reginald Hargreeves, Also complicated feelings about Pogo, But Discussion of How Mean She Can Be, But Discussion of How Shitty He Can Be, Grace loves her kids and you can't convince me otherwise, Grief/Mourning, He's pretty bad in this, I hate Reginald Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, My First Work in This Fandom, Not Luther Bashing, Not Vanya Bashing, Other, Past Child Abuse, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Protective Number Five | The Boy, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Temporary Character Death, They're All Trying To Do Better, no beta we die like ben</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:42:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,951</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/songohanfan1/pseuds/songohanfan1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“At least you were included.” She looks more uncertain as she says this than she had before, crossing and uncrossing her arms until she leaves one arm out to gesture with.<br/>Klaus scoffs. “Included? Yeah, I was included. In the training, the abuse, and the literal forced murder shit. Did dad ever hit you, Vanya? Did he ever scream at you to quit crying while the whole time he’s hitting you with that fucking cane?”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Allison Hargreeves &amp; Vanya Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves, Grace Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves &amp; The Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves &amp; Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy &amp; Klaus Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>432</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Accountability</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>The Hargreeves had all been sticking closer together since coming back from the Third Not-pocalypse. Now back in their own timeline and not some horrible parallel dimension, and considering the state of each of their lives prior to the first Apocalypse, they all elected to live at the Academy together until everything cools down. Allison hadn’t been able to visit Claire yet due to some bullshit Patrick had spouted to the lawyers about her purposely missing the mandated therapy appointments; but she still made sure to call her daughter everyday, and even allowed all her siblings a chance to speak with their niece and get to know her. Allison was still forced to do her mandated therapy, over the phone now though, but at least now she was able to devote a good portion of her time into getting to actually know her siblings. </p><p>They hadn’t been raised to be friends, more close to academic rivals actually, but Klaus had definitely noticed a difference in the way Allison treated them all. In this timeline, their own original one, Allison had been on strict radio-silence for close to 13 years, ignoring and rejecting any attempts any of the rest of her family made to reach out to her. So now, with the weekly spa days, makeup sessions, one-on-one good-natured training, and almost daily movie nights, he felt a drastic difference. A very welcome one.</p><p>Somehow Five had finessed the timeline to keep Eudora, Diego’s girlfriend, alive so he had been much happier than he was before, although he still did some vigilante work it was not nearly often or as dangerous as it had been. Vanya kept her chair in the orchestra, however ill-gotten it was, and had partnered with a performing arts high school nearby to teach lessons to students for a much higher pay than she had been earning by doing freelance lessons before. Five was doing...okay.</p><p> Klaus had noticed that their resident hitman was still quite paranoid, looking for any possibility that the Commission might be after them, even despite Diego’s reminder to him that Herb was in charge now, and Herb was a good dude. He spent most of the day holed away in his room desperately working and reworking probability charts and making calls to Herb about potential timeline disturbances of the Apocalyptic variety, all just to ensure the stability of this hard-won peaceful timeline Five had scored them. Honestly, Klaus was just happy that Five had been sleeping more. Even as a kid his big brain and almost manic dedication to knowledge had led to averaging around 3 hours a night. If he were lucky. Now though, he was averaging between 5 and 6 hours each night, and the decrease in angry, snappish behavior had been very much noticed, and very much appreciated.</p><p> Luther was seeing a therapist, some little old lady by the name of Sara, and although Klaus hadn’t actually sat in on any of his brother’s therapy sessions, he had a feeling the experience was really helping his brother overcome his issues. Namely the body dysmorphia, as well as his overall ‘assholeish-ness’. Luther had clearly been making an effort to be nicer to himself, making positive remarks about the way he looked and he had just recently started feeling comfortable showing more skin as well. He had even introduced a reward system to the family based on getting stars for good behavior, and even if Allison was currently winning in the monthly contest of who could earn the most good-boy stars, Klaus couldn’t deny the sudden and drastic decrease in the overall asshole-ish nature of their family. Just yesterday, Diego had intentionally made extra of his smoothie to give to Klaus for breakfast, and his knifey brother had practically beamed when their mother had watched the interaction, praised him for his thoughtfulness, and placed a neon purple star in Diego’s row on the chart.</p><p>Ben was...still gone forever. His lack of presence going mostly unnoticed and unremarked upon by the rest of Klaus’ siblings. Klaus though, still felt his absence like the throb of a freshly severed limb; all sharp pain gushing fresh blood with every reminder of his lost brother. A never-healing wound that was impossible to ignore for a person who had spent 17 years stuck side-by-side to their ghostly brother. While the last time Ben had died Klaus didn’t have any problem with walking into his brother’s room, especially when said brother was begging him to read one of his favorite books to him, this time Klaus kept a wide berth. He hadn’t even been on the third floor since their original adventure in this timeline. If Five wanted to talk to him, he would have to come to Klaus, somewhere that wasn’t the same floor as their dead brother’s bedroom.</p><p>Whatever.</p><p> Klaus was decidedly not thinking about it. And that’s how it would stay, firmly locked away in the mind vault forever and being stringently ignored. And if his siblings, whom he was so incredibly proud of by the way, made the unfortunate decision to ask about or talk about Ben, it was met with a prompt and severe shutdown or distraction into talking about a new topic. And that’s how it would stay. Because Klaus didn’t need to talk about Ben. There was nothing to even talk about. One second he had been coming up on 17 years of haunting his flamboyant, if depressed, brother, the next he was banished from the mortal realm forever. And then, and fucking then, Klaus had been forced to see his brother’s face plastered on the personality of a really mean, shitty stranger until finally, he was thrown back into his own timeline. So no, he didn’t have anything to talk about.</p><p> No Diego, not even to you. Thank you very much.</p><p>Frankly, the whole situation was tense and awkward, and everyone stepped on each other's toes near constantly, but so far they had managed not to cause a fourth Apocalypse, and honestly that was all anyone could really hope for at the moment. Even if it did occasionally get awkward having to share a bathroom with his now fully grown brothers who never seemed to remember whose toothbrush was whose. At least they didn’t all have to share the same bathroom, the girls had their own, which thankfully kept any possibly awkward conversations to a minimum. God knows Luther blushes far too much to be healthy if he even hears mention of a pad or tampon.</p><p>This is, of course, not to say that there were never fights or arguments. It was pretty often that a disagreement triggered the violent tendencies that they had all been taught as the primary form of communication growing up. Fortunately, or unfortunately if you’re Klaus and you love drama, there hadn’t been nearly as many as they had originally been worried about. This left Klaus with not a whole lot in the ways of  forms of entertainment. Painting nails with Allison, Vanya, and Five was fun of course, but he could only take so much tenderness and lovey-dovey behavior from his siblings before he started to wonder if they had been replaced by actual, good people. Not to mention how smothering Allison’s mothering could be. </p><p>So when Klaus heard the sound of his disgruntled siblings echoing up from downstairs, he definitely wanted a seat to the show, especially since it probably wasn’t about him, seeing as he had been sober since leaving the Second apocalypse and arriving into Sparrow dimension. He had also been making a conscious effort to be on his best behavior, especially since the start of Luther’s little positive reinforcement program. Luther had bought glittery stars especially for him, and sometimes Grace would give Klaus two, one to put on his chart and one to wear. It was oddly effective.</p><p>He perks up from where he had been idly rooting through Allison’s closet at the sound of his most stabby brother’s (Diego, not Five) incredulous exclamation echoing up the stairs from the floor below. Klaus drops the leopard print leggings (clearly leftover from Allison’s childhood) he had been considering liberating from his sister’s possession, and doesn’t bother to close the door to his sister’s closet as he steps over the piles of clothes he had strewn about and leaves the bedroom, almost tripping over a really hideous sweater he had thrown in the doorway. Recovering his balance, Klaus listens for any additional sounds from his siblings, worried the fight might have already been over, and grins brightly as he hears the steady din of Allison disagreeing with whatever Diego had shouted. </p><p>“Ooh, must be spicy if Allison’s getting involved. Fabulous!” He claps his hands in excitement before gleefully, albeit carefully, trotting down the stairs, like he had practiced doing since his little “accident” breaking his jaw as a child. Sure, he wanted to insert himself into what had the making to be a truly astonishing and enjoyable family argument, but he wouldn't get the chance if he cracked his head open on the stairs first.</p><p>Klaus comes around the corner of the stairs and looks into the sitting room where he can still hear the sound of completely unrestrained and obtrusive voices arguing back and forth. It seems to actually be both of his sisters lashing out at Diego, Klaus just apparently couldn’t hear Vanya’s calm and steady voice amidst the ruckus of his other two siblings’ squabble. He peeks his head in the door and sees his family gathered in the sitting room, Klaus grins wolfishly at the sight of Allison with her hand clenched in the front of Diego’s turtleneck, other fist pulled back, and whistles. </p><p>His siblings turn to look at him, glaring almost in unison, and as he returns the questioning, if aggressive, looks with his grin, he notices that amidst the chaos of his other siblings fighting, Five is sitting calmly at the bar with a drink in his hand, looking completely undisturbed or troubled. He and Five had always shared a mutual love for chaos though, so it’s not too surprising that the old man had managed to keep that trait with him throughout his life.</p><p>  “What do we have here?” Klaus makes his grin a little more manic, just to make his siblings uncomfortable, and strides toward Allison as he gently but firmly pulls her fist out of his brother’s shirt, lowers her other more threatening one, and guides her to sit in the armchair across from the coffee table. She grumbles as she goes, and briefly tries to halfheartedly fight it, but eventually allows him to lead her to her chair, and she delicately takes her seat, as though she hadn’t just been unrulily threatening Number Two with bodily harm. Klaus gives her a double thumbs-up before plopping down onto the ottoman in front of her chair. He leans back into her, taking her arms and draping them across himself like a seatbelt. He makes a ‘continue’ gesture with his hand towards Diego and Vanya, both still standing close to one another in the middle of the seating area, and both clearly still heated from the dispute that Klaus had interrupted.</p><p>Diego throws him an irritated look, though from the way he was almost squaring off with Vanya, Klaus was probably not the actual source of his irritation. Diego pointedly brushes himself off, before firmly flipping off Allison, making sure his hand is well-angled and unobscured so she could see it even from her spot behind Klaus. The Séance hears her snort right next to his ear and regains his grin, settling deeper into Allison’s embrace, now content to simply observe the dissolving mayhem in front of him.</p><p> “She still won’t admit she was wrong about the book.” He spits as he directs his attention back to Vanya, his glare regaining its full heat as he crosses his arms in front of his chest.</p><p>Vanya sighs and says loudly, speaking over the murmurs rising from her other siblings,  “There are some things I regret putting in there, but I don’t actually regret writing my book.” She defensively mirrors Diego’s body language, crossing her arms and looking her brother directly in the eyes.</p><p>“Yeah? Well you’re a piece of sh-” Diego jabs a finger at her before he gets cut off.</p><p>“Like what? What sorts of things do you regret writing about?” Klaus purposely calls the attention back to himself, seeing Diego clenching his fists and clearly only getting more worked up. And Klaus knows that with the way Vanya seems so stubbornly defensive that this won’t be a productive conversation. Although he thrives on drama, he doesn’t want his siblings to actually be mean to each other. He also draws the line at anyone, even another sibling, calling his baby sister a piece of shit. But again, never let it be said that Klaus didn’t love to see fireworks, so although he redirects their attention to him, to dim some of the anger stewing, he makes sure to stir the pot at the same time, keep the argument going. To be fair though, he also asks because he genuinely wants to know which things Vanya had truly meant in the book, and which had just been mean, angry lies told in the heat of her narrative.</p><p>“I shouldn’t have gone into so much detail surrounding Ben’s death, I know that should have stayed just between us, for us. And I definitely shouldn’t have implied it was anyone’s fault. I might’ve been too hard on Pogo since he never actually hurt any of us, so he probably didn’t deserve how mean I was to him. But that’s it.” She levels him with a weighted glare, knowing what he was fishing for, and she certainly wasn’t going to admit wrongdoing to those present in what she had written. Not in this family. No, in this family, admitting mistakes was a death wish, it would be lorded over you and used against you for the rest of your fucking life. And she should know. She did the same thing towards her entire family in her autobiography. </p><p>Klaus scoffs and interrupts, “First of all, it wasn’t an implication, you legit said that we were the reason Ben was dead like multiple times. Also no, that’s definitely not the case, you should have been wayyy harder on Pogo. He was such an asshole growing up. He literally helped Dad with all the fucked-up shit he did to us, and I don’t think he ever really even cared about any of us, for Ben’s sake.” He looks around at his siblings and clarifies.</p><p> “It’s a new thing I’m trying out. Like God’s sake, except God is a bitchy little girl, so I’m saying Ben instead. May he spend his Afterlife shitting on Reggie’s face for all Eternity.” Allison chokes on the water she was drinking, disgustingly getting the back of his neck moist, and Diego grins and does the Pound Pound Peace sign to the ceiling. Luther nods in solemn agreement from his spot leaning against the other armchair, while Five shows solidarity by raising his glass of probably-gin in a toast and inclining his head. He sees Vanya crack a grin for a split second at the image Klaus provided them with, before seeming to remember that she’s supposed to be angry right now and schooling her expression back into a firm, disapproving scowl.</p><p>There is a moment of silence after everyone’s initial reactions that is filled with heavy and pitying stares aimed at him, as they all recall their dead brother’s fate. It’s almost like they’re waiting to see what Klaus will do. But like he already said, Klaus doesn’t fucking need to talk about it so he cuts that shit out by making them all focus and get angry with each other again.</p><p>“You don’t regret writing anything about any of the rest of us?” He tries not to sound as though he’s prompting her, even though he totally is, as he asks this. He knows it would only make his sister more defensive and even more unlikely to yield her position if it sounded like he was fishing for an apology.</p><p>“Why would I? Basically everything I wrote in there was true, after all.” She states with a head held high, not looking at any of them and ignoring their incredulous, angry stares. Whoops, it seems like his attempt at keeping her more open to discussion failed, she’s definitely clammed up in a shell of self-righteousness and bitterness. Klaus can’t help but feel like Ben would have known what to say if he had been there, and definitely for the first time that day he curses his brother’s desire for Eternal Peace.  (It was absolutely not the first time. He literally thinks about Ben like every 5 minutes, always looking over to see his reaction to what’s happening even though he’s never there anymore. He’s not. Of course he’s not. Ben managed to score Double Death. So he’s gone. Forever.) </p><p>Well, too bad, so sad, looks like this is going to become a genuine argument instead of the discussion he had been aiming for. Although to be fair he had mostly been half-assing his attempts at peace, and had definitely been purposefully contributing to the tension and conflict in the room. </p><p>What can he say? He loves a good show.</p><p>“You know, for someone who claims they’ve never done anything wrong a day in their life, you’re pretty fucking selfish and kind of arrogant, right?” He doesn’t bother sparing the anger from his voice at this point in the argument. He doesn’t normally get mad, and when he does it fizzles out as quickly as it comes, but this anger boiling low in his gut seems to be sticking around. Besides, he’s been to enough court-mandated therapy of his own that he knows she definitely feels guilty about more than just how she treated fucking Pogo, especially since she’s being this defensive about what she said about them in her dumb book. </p><p>He has never, and will never, feel hatred towards any of his siblings, no matter what any of them have done to him. For some reason the little girl elected to give him almost no shame or dignity, but decided to make up for that extra space with insane amounts of compassion, sympathy, and understanding. He’s basically a walking bleeding heart. And the book is definitely not the worst thing any of his siblings have done, but it was certainly the most painful to experience, each sentence designed to pierce and pry at a part of themselves they all tried to desperately ignore, get rid of, or pretend didn’t exist. </p><p>For him, it showed the world every part of himself that everyone knew he already hated, as well as certain habits he had that he would not have told anybody about willingly. Things that the therapists at rehab centers brought up to him, used against him, even though he had never told anyone about those parts of himself. The attacks against himself had hurt. Badly. But when he read it, he had been more concerned for how it would hurt his siblings and their new Adult Lives, than how it had made him, some piece of shit junkie whore, feel. Little Girl knows Allison gets enough paparazzi that this book probably revealed the very little privacy she had left to the entire world.</p><p>“I never said I haven’t done anything wrong, Klaus”- She rolls her eyes and uncrosses her arms-“you’re just being a jerk and putting words in my mouth.” She speaks more directly than she had prior to all the Apocalypses, almost like someone was talking over her, even though it was only her and Klaus speaking and he tended to make it a point not to speak over his sisters. They had all been making a conscious effort not to do that, especially with Vanya, since it only ever made her feel worse about herself and made them feel guilty in turn, for brushing her aside yet again.</p><p>“Okay, then why didn’t you mention how you treated us? Like how you judged us whenever we complained about training, or how when we would invite you out with us somewhere, you’d say shit like ‘Oh, you want me? Number Seven? The lowly ordinary one? I don’t even deserve to be around you, right?’, and shit like that. You pulled away from us just as much as we pushed you away.” Klaus moves from his laid back position resting his back against Allison’s chest with her arms enveloping him, to sit up straight, shrugging off Allison’s arms. She apparently is annoyed by him shrugging her off as her eyes narrow and she inserts herself, conversationally-speaking, between them.</p><p>“Klaus that’s enough. We definitely don’t need to be playing the blame-game here. We were all fucked up in different ways. And we definitely left Vanya out of basically everything growing up.” </p><p>Allison tries to tug him back to her grasp, and Klaus relents but doesn’t loosen his irritated gaze from Vanya’s. A small silence settles in the room filled with agreeable nodding coming from the entirety of the Hargreeves siblings, although Diego is maintaining quite the sour face from his position standing in front of Vanya by the coffee table. His frown becomes more severe and he throws Allison a scathing look.</p><p>“Her book was still bullshit though, Allison. Yeah, we treated her like shit, but that doesn’t mean she needs to write a fucking burn book about us like 10 years later. She should’ve just sent us all death threats like normal relatives who hate each other do.” </p><p>“I don’t think that would have the same effect though, we get death threats all the time.” Even as he says this, Five’s eyes narrow, seeming to consider the implications of the death threats they receive on pretty much a weekly basis. Actually, should they be taking these letters more seriously? It would be rather difficult to take every single one seriously, considering they come every Monday morning without fail, and have been, since the Academy debuted and even after it had disbanded. But maybe they had more merit to them than just the empty threats they assumed they were?</p><p> Death threats become rather boring and mundane after so many years of receiving them. Where’s the variety, the panache? At least when Five makes death threats he follows them up with something creative and more intimidating. Send a death threat, wait a few weeks so the victim gets comfy again, then BAM! severed finger in a pudding cup on their kitchen table. Five makes a note to himself to open one of these letters when they arrive on Monday and to see just what they’re about. Hopefully he’ll find something a bit more interesting than your run-of-the-mill hate letter.</p><p> Klaus perks up as a solution comes to mind, “She could have sent burning bags of dog shit to each of us instead?” </p><p> Fives nods earnestly, “Yes, that would have been infinitely more effective than sending simple death threats as Diego stupidly suggested.” </p><p>Diego rolls his eyes and huffs, “Fine, flaming bags of dog shit then. Point is, you went way overboard with your retaliation Vanya. You”-Diego jabs a finger in her direction, then gestures between them wildly as he speaks-“made it all public instead of keeping shit between us like adults.” </p><p>Hmm...he seems to be becoming just a tad more unhinged. Perfect! Just the way Klaus likes family arguments: stupid, unproductive, and just barely bordering the edge of deranged. </p><p>Vanya glares and her eyes gain a light film of white as a small breeze seems to come from nowhere. “Like adults? I’m the only one here who’s ever even been an adult! You dress up in a Batman costume most nights, Allison is so used to getting her way she still throws literal temper tantrums, Luther has the emotional capacity of a 13 year old, and Klaus was a homeless drug addict for 13 years. So excuse me if I don’t want to behave the same way you all do when you’re mad.”</p><p>“You literally caused the Apocalypse. Twice,” Diego deadpans, staring at her unimpressed. He blinks slowly at her and quirks an eyebrow, waiting for a response for a minute, before shaking his head with a sigh and planting himself on the edge of the armchair that sits across from Klaus and Allison’s, the coffee table still separating them. He steeples his fingers, puts his head down and doesn’t look back up as the silence settles tensely around the weight of his accusation. Luther awkwardly lays a giant hand on his brother’s shoulder from his position standing next to said armchair.</p><p>Klaus looks around at his other siblings. He can sort of understand why Diego was upset with what she had just said about them. Klaus had grown used to people saying shit like that about him a long time ago so it doesn’t bother him, but it’s not normal for the others to receive that sort of negative breakdown of their individual characters too often. Although, to be fair Vanya is right; for all that his siblings are basically hardened soldiers, they’re pretty sensitive to genuine criticism. Especially when it’s mostly true and coming from a loved one. But something about what she said is bothering him, and besides, it’s too quiet again.</p><p>“What about Five and Ben?” He sees Vanya’s eyes snap away from glaring angrily at Diego, back to his. She seems slightly thrown off that he wasn’t similarly as upset as the rest of their siblings, but he watches as she registers what he asked and she becomes completely bewildered in response.</p><p>“Why would I say something about Five and Ben? Five is a 60 year old man who’s at least grown up enough to live through an Apocalypse by himself and come out mostly normal. And Ben died when he was 17 years old, so I didn’t expect him to act like an adult.” </p><p>“And even though she said that, it still doesn’t change the fact that we treated her like dirt, guys. She had every right to vent about us in her book.” </p><p>Allison, for all that she had drawn a very sharp breath when Vanya mentioned the meltdowns she had been known to have lately, seems to have recovered enough to once again stick her neck out for her sister once again. Which is sort of ironic, Klaus considers, especially since Vanya had cut Allison’s throat only a couple years ago. Oh well, it was kind of sweet that at least someone was sticking up for Vanya. In this family, if you were going to start an argument you absolutely needed other people on your side, or you’d get stepped all over ruthlessly. Although, now it was time for Klaus to do the stepping, as rare as that had been growing up, he felt strongly enough about the issue to fight for some fucking accountability from Vanya.</p><p>“I know, Ally, and that is genuinely awful and I regret having ever done that to you, Vanya. I honestly can’t even imagine how alone you must have felt all the time. But that’s still not how you should treat your siblings, Van. I know we didn’t act like it much, and we were absolute shit to you, but we were abused too, probably in ways you don’t understand, just like how we didn’t understand what we were doing to you. You totally erased that in your book. Instead, you said that we all ganged up on you and collectively decided to treat you badly. You even said that dad loved us and treated us better than you, Vanya, and I know that you know that wasn’t true.”</p><p>“I was focusing on how our home-life affected me, Klaus, not anyone else.” She speaks firmly, but not loudly as she calmly deflects his argument. Funny though, how she won’t look him in the eye, and the bristled and defensive air she was projecting had all but disappeared.</p><p>“Right,” he nods, agreeing with her, “but it wasn’t just a matter of focus, it was full-on you keeping the information of how we were abused by Dad too, intentionally to yourself. You created a narrative that you were the sole sufferer in a house full of people who despised and mistreated you. It wasn’t fucking true at all, and putting that kind of shit into the world affects people, Van. It affected us and how we lived our lives after escaping Reggie’s hell house. You didn’t give a shit how it hurt us, and it showed.” He says this fervently, knowing firsthand what it’s like to manipulate situations into making him come out as the good guy or the victim.</p><p> It worked well on the streets, at least when he was younger and before people could see the ever-present shake in his hands and the chemical desperation in his eyes. Before he stopped caring about whether or not he ate every day or slept indoors. When he actually would use some of the money given to him to get food, or even occasionally a motel room. He had done anything he could in order to survive on the streets. And if that included panhandling, well none of his siblings knew about it, and none of them ever would. He had never seen them while he was doing that; he made sure he set up far away from his usual stomping grounds, just in case Diego ever came looking for him. </p><p>“Klaus, I understand what you’re trying to accomplish, but this isn’t the most constructive way to have this conversation, especially not with how many attacks have been thrown around, from both parties.” Five tacks on the last portion of his sentence, giving pointed looks to both Diego and Vanya after seeing the sense of vindication starting to settle in both of their eyes, and he makes sure to stamp it out and dampen both of their egos while he was at it. He lifts his glass back up to his lips as he gives Klaus a look, expecting for Klaus to give in and waiting for him to cave to Five’s wishes. Klaus always caved when they were kids, not being one to purposefully impose himself into family arguments, always looking for a way to defuse the situation. </p><p>Klaus knew what he was thinking would happen, but Five clearly hadn’t accounted for a couple things; 1: how much Klaus liked to rile his siblings up, and 2: how deeply Klaus cared about whether Vanya understood what she had done when she wrote her tell-all autobiography. He nods, lulling Five back to peace, and his brother nods in satisfaction and sips his drink, content in the knowledge that the argument would end here. Or so he thought.</p><p>“I know Five-O, but <em> I” </em>-he dramatically drapes a hand on his chest-“don’t think it was very constructive for her to write an entire book telling the world that we were the ones that abused her, instead of our piece of shit Dad, may he burn eternally in anguish, when we were all neglected and taught to kill people as children.” Five purses his lips and frowns before opening his mouth to speak again.</p><p> Klaus decides to speak over the time-traveler so as not to be dissuaded from the argument again.</p><p> “See Vanya, you could’ve made a book about how Dad treated us all like horseshit, but instead you wanted to play the victim card, and milk it as hard as you could to make it seem like we all intentionally ganged up on you.”</p><p> “You know none of the shit we did was ever intentional.” Diego cuts in, looking between Vanya and Klaus as he backs his brother up. Klaus nods.</p><p> “Yeah, that’s just how Dad taught us to behave toward you, and of course we all know, now that we’ve escaped him, that we were horrible to you, and Vanya, you know how sorry we are about all of it. We’ve told you a million times how deeply we regret ignoring you, and you know how much I adore having you as my little sister. But you should, since you are a generally good person, regret at least some of the things you said about us in your book.” Klaus sees her start to open her mouth, once again angered by his claims, so he decides to continue speaking, ignoring her attempt to interrupt him. That didn’t count as cutting her off, right? She was going to cut him off, so he just stopped her. Right?</p><p> “ For instance-” he raises a finger to assert his point, “-you literally told the world how I fucking cut myself as a teenager. In fact with how the rest of the book had been going, I was almost surprised at the time that you didn't add any pictures.”</p><p>He notices all of his siblings jerk and look away as though physically burned. Aside from Five, who wears a grim expression, mouth a flat line of disapproval, though whether that’s directed towards the reminder of Vanya’s revelation, or that Klaus had done that to himself, he doesn’t know since Five who is staring at the ground directly in front of the barstool he sits on.</p><p>That had been a very troubling aspect of his chapter, especially thinking back on it now, since no other siblings had known about that. Vanya had walked into the bathroom in the middle of the night when he was 15 without knocking. She had told Grace and Pogo, who told Reginald. He had been viciously mocked and degraded by their father, forced to have pictures taken to ‘document his injuries’. Then he had spent a good 2 days in the mausoleum for his desire to take his own life, which counted as stealing since their father owned them.</p><p>“You took pictures of you hurting yourself, Klaus?” </p><p>Luther, bless his heart, was clearly not using the braincell today. Klaus looks pityingly at him and speaks slowly, gently, so that Luther knows it’s not just Klaus trying to fuck with him.</p><p>“No, buddy, Dad took the pictures. He said they were for my medical history.” He mutters to himself, “Even though they never ended up in my file, so I’m pretty sure he did it just to make me feel worse. It was super awkward, especially considering the locations of some of my cuts.” There were some particular lines that had been on his upper thighs, after all, and Reginald had insisted on him undressing, to ‘Get a clearer picture without the worry of clothing obscuring the full damage done’. It hadn’t been in any sort of worrying or weird way, Klaus was pretty much certain it had just been to make him squirm in the shame and hatred he felt for himself.</p><p>Vanya winces particularly hard, compared to his other siblings, at what Klaus said but shakes her head slowly and says, “You have no idea what I’ve been through,” as though that is enough justification for what she had revealed to the world about him.</p><p>Klaus just sighs and shakes his head, “I wished everyday, that I would be normal like you.” He really had, sometimes even staying up praying, like how he learned to do from Full House, that he would wake up powerless and that Vanya would finally get her wish come true. (But only that she would get a power, not his. Never his. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone his smallest, tenderest sister.)</p><p>Vanya takes a sharp inhale of breath, and says quietly “What a horrible thing to say. Why would you even think of saying something like that to me, Klaus?” She looks angry, but also like tears could start welling up at any moment. But for all that Klaus is a tender heart, he’s also a shark in equal measure, just like the rest of his siblings. Although he doesn’t like to attack people he cares about, once he has his teeth in something, it’s going to take a Hell of a lot to get him out and keep him from going for the kill. And unfortunately for Vanya, she did attack first.</p><p>“You got to have the closest thing to a normal childhood out of everyone here.” He says emphatically, gesturing to the rest of the remnants of the Umbrella Academy. “No one else got to learn talents or hobbies. Hell, dad said our powers were our hobbies, claimed we didn’t have enough time for real hobbies if we were practicing the way he told us to.”</p><p>He breathes out a sad chuckle and holds his forehead in disbelief, “Vanya, you were so far up your own ass that you were blind to anyone else’s problems. You didn’t give a shit how Dad treated us. You saw Diego coming in late at night after being drowned, and you thought ‘god, I wish that were me’. You heard about, and probably saw the recording of Ben being murdered, literally torn apart by his own fucking tentacle demon, and you thought that you should have been the one born with the Horror.”</p><p>Vanya looks at him surprised, shocked, and panicked, she had never voiced those thoughts to anyone, not Dad, Pogo, or Mom, and certainly not to any of her siblings. At her expression of almost-fear, like she’s worried he can read her thoughts or something, he decides he does owe her some sort of explanation.</p><p> “Ghosts. They tell me literally anything and everything. Especially shit I don’t want to hear, and believe me, I really didn’t want to hear how you used to tell yourself that if you had the Horror you would simply keep control of it and wouldn’t <em> let </em> it tear you apart.” She actually does tear up this time, a filmy glaze settling over her white eyes, and he has to look away to say what he needs to say next, as the tears begin to drip slowly down her face.</p><p>“You’re selfish Vanya.”</p><p> He can’t look at her sad face as he says it, but he really needs her to know this. She needs to acknowledge at least some of the mistakes she’s made. And it’s clear from how angry she is, that with how much they’ve all, Klaus definitely included, been coddling her, no one has asked accountability from her. </p><p>He would rather it not be him who has to cut her open like this and expose her, but he knows that if it were Diego doing this, it wouldn’t come from a place of love, but a desire for revenge. And none of the other siblings, aside from possibly Five, would have the guts to do this. She needs these horrible, grotesque parts of her exposed so she can heal. Her life has been ruled by too much bitterness and envy. And accepting that you’ve done something wrong is the first step to becoming a better person. </p><p>Or so Ben says. </p><p>Said.</p><p>She goes on the attack again, this time with tears leaving tracks down her cheeks as they bead up and leak from her eyes. “How have <em> I </em> been selfish, Klaus? My whole life I sat on the backburner of your lives! I wasn’t allowed to play with you, I wasn’t even really allowed to <em> talk </em> to you. I was a fucking side character in my own life.” Her last sentence comes out tremblingly, like it almost breaks her to admit how neglected she had been.</p><p> Klaus is left unwilling to speak, to damn her by making her face the truth of how she affected their lives. Despite his desire for a show, the teeth he sunk into her had flayed her alive, and had left a decidedly terrible rotting taste in his mouth.</p><p>“You helped ruin Allison’s marriage.” Luther speaks suddenly but commandingly, and no matter that they’ve eliminated the need for a leader, whenever he speaks everyone listens. And of course he does so in defense of Allison. Even though they’ve both given up on anything romantic happening at this point, (<em> Thank God </em>!) they were still and probably always would be best friends. </p><p>Allison, interestingly enough, throws a scolding look at Luther, making him back up slightly from where he had been edging into the circle of conversation.</p><p>Klaus opens his mouth to argue that Allison had mostly been the cause of it, what with her abusive mind-controlling of her daughter, but then he remembers when Allison had called Diego one night while Klaus had been staying over. </p><p>Diego had let the phone ring and hang up on its own a few times, but Allison had kept calling back, so eventually, on the third cycle of this happening, he picked up the phone. Diego, at Klaus’ begging, had put it on speaker and their sister’s usually-melodious voice flooded the tiny boiler room.</p><p> Her voice was quiet and sounded clenched, voice breaking sporadically as she said, ‘He read the book, Diego. He read the fucking book. He knows about the rumors, he thinks I rumored him into loving him.’ Diego, looking suddenly all too knowing, had responded bluntly, “Well, did you?” She had gone quiet for a moment and said almost whispering, “Yes. But we were already engaged, he was going to marry me anyway. I just wanted some reassurance that he actually loved me.” She cuts off mid-sentence to take a shaky breath.</p><p> “Anyway, that doesn’t matter right now. He thinks I’ve been rumoring him the whole time, he s-said he’s going to take Claire away from me and I-I-I’ll never see her again. That’s my daughter, Diego. My baby.” She had broken down into alternating quiet sniffles and loud sobs and wails at that point, before quietly uttering, “ Oh god, what have I done?” Diego looked incredibly distressed and uncomfortable, especially since he was completely unable to comfort her and there was truly nothing he could do to help her, while Klaus just wished he could scoop her up and hug all her problems away. </p><p>He couldn’t quite word it that way though, instead choosing to stay quiet so she didn’t know he was there, seeing as he had <em> just </em> shot up before he came over so he pretty much just told Diego how he would help her feel better. “I wanna scoop her, y’know? Like all warm ‘n fuzzy, Di.” It hadn’t been a good night for any of them, and especially not for Diego’s copy of <em> Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven. </em></p><p>“You probably contributed to Diego getting kicked out of cop school,” Klaus turns back around to Five, surprised the young/old man had even said anything since he hadn’t wanted to have this discussion just a little bit ago. Klaus sends him a questioning look and Five shrugs and deigns to explain his thought process.</p><p> “I didn’t want to talk about it, but if we’re going to talk about the consequences of Vanya’s book, despite my better judgement and advice,  I feel that Diego getting kicked out of the Police Academy is a rather obvious one. Not necessarily a bad consequence, but a consequence nevertheless.” </p><p> “Fuck you. I did that on my own.” Diego scoffs and flips him off. And although he probably said it to show that his actions were his own, it sort of just makes him seem like some sort of intentional failure. Klaus nods earnestly and points to Diego in brotherly solidarity nonetheless, implying that what Diego had said made sense and was important. He notices Five, in the edges of his vision, roll his eyes and snort at his brothers’ stupidity.</p><p>“Hey, to be fair to Vanya, she was pretty spot on about how Luther used to be growing up.” Klaus is quick to point that out, given that it was one of the only chapters that was mostly made up of truthful tales of how shitty Luther was to grow up with. The other siblings murmur their assent with Klaus, as to how much of an absolute dick Luther used to be. Though when he sees Luther’s kicked-puppy expression from the corner of his eye he is equally as quick to reassure him.</p><p> “Don’t worry big guy, you’ve gotten better.” He throws him a smile, and Luther looks not quite as devastated as before, which Klaus counts as a win. He turns back to meet Vanya’s glare. He sighs.</p><p>“I am so glad you’re with us Vanya, and I love you dearly, but you never even tried to apologize for writing all that shit in your book.” He feels himself shift from attacking to pleading with her conscience to realize and at least acknowledge where she went wrong.</p><p>She shakes her head and insists, “I shouldn’t have to apologize for writing the truth.” Klaus groans, sits up, and then flops back down onto Allison for dramatic effect. Allison grunts, Klaus is literally a poster child for Heroin addiction, but with the force he purposely exerted to make himself fall down harder and more dramatically, it definitely wasn’t a gentle impact on her. Especially her boobs, Jesus, he made the underwire jab her right in the meat of her fucking tit. She reaches underneath him, lifts him enough to shove a hand under and pushes the piece of wire persistently trying to stab her in the heart back in place. Klaus continues on like she hasn’t moved at all.</p><p>“Jesus this is getting fucking circular. Your truth. You could have just written about how abusive Dad was, there’s like 17 years worth of material in there, it could definitely fill up a book. Or, you could even have written about dad’s under-the-table dealings, which I’m literally 100% goddamned certain weren’t legal by anyone’s standards.” He looks at her face as it grows less upset and more considering, she looks like she’s almost wondering if she should have done that instead of attacking her siblings like she had.</p><p>“Instead you dragged your fellow abused children down with you. Instead of focusing on the fact that dad literally abused all of us, you mentioned it like once, then just basically wrote a burn-book about us.” He gestures to all of the siblings within eyesight, so Luther, Diego, and Five to emphasize who it was she had dragged. Although she hadn’t really attacked Five, so much as briefly suggested he was kind of mean and had a tendency for being standoffish, and had left it at that.</p><p>“At least you were included.” She looks more uncertain as she says this than she had before, crossing and uncrossing her arms until she leaves one arm out to gesture with.</p><p>Klaus scoffs. “Included? Yeah, I was included. In the training, the abuse, and the literal forced murder shit. Did dad ever hit you, Vanya? Did he ever scream at you to quit crying while the whole time he’s hitting you with that fucking cane?” </p><p>Dammit he really doesn’t like being this angry normally, but he feels his frustration and anger fester up again at how obstinate she’s being.</p><p>Her eyebrows furrow and she purses her lips in distaste, “Well, no, but-”</p><p>“I was stuck in a mausoleum for days, Vanya.” He speaks boldly, leaving no room for argument or disbelief, which he’s sure he’s going to get soon. In order to fend off the pending flashback that keeps trying to force itself to the forefront of his mind, he puts on an air of disinterest, picking at his cracking nails. </p><p>“I made them corporeal once, you know. The ghosts. They killed me. I died. And when I came home and told you that I had been stuck having ‘special training’ with dad, the whole time covered in blood and sobbing, you still kept saying how lucky I was to have powers so dad would notice me.” Klaus cuts her off as she tries to speak over him. And even though he knows they’ve all been trying really hard not to do that kind of shit anymore, she’s being bullheaded enough in justifying her actions that he doesn’t think anyone, even Vanya later once she’s cooled down, will be upset with him for it. </p><p>Once he finishes speaking, he notices that Allison’s arm that had been loosely enclosing his chest has grown tighter, cinching in place like she wants to keep him there with her and out of harm’s reach. It’s really sweet and affection wells up in his chest at the gesture. But at the same time, where was this protectiveness when he was 10 fucking years old and being dragged away to go be murdered by ghosts? She hadn’t been nearly as kind back then, and nowhere near as caring as she is now. It makes Klaus want to mourn the relationship they could have had if only they hadn’t all, himself included, been too self-centered and competitive for their father’s affections.</p><p>Vanya stumbles as she tries to reign the conversation back in her favor, knowing Klaus’ emotional appeal had definitely affected the fake jury composed of their siblings. “That’s different. That was training, you were just scared of your powers. I’m sure if you had just been a little more focused or dedicated, like Dad said, that wouldn’t have happened to you. And it’s awful that it did happen, but the only one at fault there was you, really.” </p><p>Klaus feels his eyes grow wider, completely involuntarily, at her words. “Yeah, of fucking course I was scared Vanya. I literally had people screaming at me, clawing at me, and fucking telling me all the different ways they were going to kill me, or worse, 24 goddamned 7.” He powers on, speaking over his own trembling lip and quickened breathing, as he remembers the place he died, the place he feels his soul die almost every night in nightmares. The place he will probably ultimately die in, because his soul probably was actually tethered there now, especially since that place had been so formative for him as a person. The mausoleum was a place he feared he would never escape.</p><p>“You saw me fighting for my life, trying to get away from my own goddamned powers, and you thought I was just being a pussy. Our rooms were basically connected for a good chunk of time, you heard me screaming and crying at night, begging them to leave me alone, and you still got mad at me whenever I needed a break from the ghosts.”</p><p>“You were getting high, Klaus.”</p><p>“And?” He challenges as he lurches forward and pushes off the ottoman. He’s standing now, closer to her but consciously making the effort not to be in her personal space.For all that he’s really fucking pissed off right now, he absolutely refuses to show aggression toward any members of his family. Even if he does have to remind himself why he loves them sometimes.</p><p> “So what if I was? Sometimes it was literally the only thing that kept me from fucking offing myself. Shit, that’d be a real nice, long break don’t you think?” He jerks a hand crudely to the scars that litter his wrists for a second before sharply dropping his hand back at his sides, seeming to forcibly keep his hands from reaching back up to cover his wrists now that he realizes that he drew attention to them. </p><p>A tense silence falls over them again. His family had never really been comfortable when faced with Klaus’ gory self-harm history, especially not during arguments. It made everything awkward and tense, like they were worried he’d relapse or something. </p><p>Klaus nervously shuffles his feet back and forth, looking at the ground so he doesn’t have to look at his siblings’ pinched, sad faces.</p><p>“You were going to kill yourself?” Luther exclaims, suddenly breaking the silence like a gunshot before Deigo says quieter and at the same time, “Jesus, Klaus, what the fuck?” </p><p>Two shakes his head and plops back down, this time onto the arm of the chair, and runs a hand through his hair while looking particularly stressed, especially for a man who normally runs about an 8 on the anger scale as his base level. </p><p>Klaus looks at him confused, and glances to his side waiting for the usual explanation Ben gives when Klaus fucked up but doesn’t know what exactly he said wrong. This time he receives silence. </p><p>Because <em> Ben is dead Klaus, you need to fucking get it through your thick, stupid, worthless motherfucking skull </em>.</p><p>He can’t restrain the shuddering breath his body takes for him in the face of the enormous amount of grief filling him up. So he plays it off with a small cough and returns his attention to Vanya, choosing to let Diego’s weird comment go unaddressed. </p><p>He knew about the self-harm, what the fuck did he think Klaus was trying to do when he locked himself in the bathroom for hours after stealing one of Diego’s knives? Frolic around with the Easter Bunny while randomly holding a knife?</p><p>Klaus takes a deep breath and lets out a frustrated sigh as he gestures loosely with his hands.</p><p>“Look, it occurred to me a few times that killing myself would be my only way out of there. I really didn’t think there was any other way to escape Dad. I mean, jeez, one time dad kept me in there for an entire week. I didn’t sleep the entire time, I couldn’t, it was just too loud. And I remember that every now and then, there really wasn’t any noticeable schedule, he had Pogo throw me a sandwich and a water bottle.” He casually waves his hands, almost like he’s trying to wave away the heavy, horrorstruck looks from his audience. He doesn’t look back up at his siblings’ faces though, he’s worried he’ll see disbelief in their eyes instead, the complete unshaking belief that everything he’s saying is total horseshit. </p><p>But Ben had believed him. </p><p>But Ben wasn’t here anymore. </p><p>“They weren’t even good sandwiches, literally just government cheese and mayo on some shitty, soggy, generic-ass whole wheat bread.” He mutters an aside, trying to relieve the tension filling the room, though he supposes the fact that he continues to talk to himself, knowing full-well that his once-captive audience is no longer there, might actually mean that he’s starting to lose it.</p><p> Oh well, at least he’s not a psychotic serial killer like Five; bless his beautiful, little deranged soul.</p><p>“I was literally so scared I just kept pissing myself. There were no extra clothes. I told Pogo about it when he came to deliver the sandwich. He just looked at me and walked away. I was 10 years old.” He doesn’t know why he continues, especially since he’s bringing back the strained feeling he had just tried to get rid of. It feels almost like the words are spilling out of his mouth unwillingly, faster than he can even think to try to keep them in.</p><p>“Hell, I knew they were watching, I asked them to save me and they still didn’t come for me, even when the ghosts started getting physical. They went from screaming and begging me for help I can’t give, to scratching me and tearing me apart. It was like someone had flipped a switch, except that someone was me, and the switch was my stupid smurf-colored hands. I was trapped in there with them for hours, while they kept clawing and biting, and ripping me apart. All I could do was scream and beg for dad to come get me.” He takes a shaky breath, tries to regain some control and a filter over what he’s telling his siblings.</p><p>“They showed up finally, once the ghosts stopped being corporeal. I don’t know what made them go away, but eventually my hands stopped glowing right as I kicked the bucket. I think it was because I died? Like once I died, they couldn’t touch me anymore maybe?” He pauses, considering whether that theory had any merit. Probably, since no matter how many times he died while ghosts were messing with him every time he woke up they would be gone, at least for a little bit. He shakes his head, casting the thought away for a time later when he’s able to think about it more clearly. Maybe run it by Five.</p><p>“Anyway, once I woke back up, I was still in the mausoleum for a couple hours after the ghosts had stopped attacking me.” He takes another breath and holds it for 4 seconds before he lets it out as a sigh, and decides that now that he’s said this much he <em> has </em> to finish the story. He licks his lips, glances to the side at Ben for reassurance, before remembering that he had just made that mistake like less than a minute ago. Hell, he’s so twitchy he wouldn’t be surprised if his siblings thought he was tweaking, even despite knowing Klaus has been sober for years now. </p><p>“Only once I had literally been murdered, and laid there waiting and wondering if the ghosts were going to come back to just keep killing me, did Dad send Pogo to get me out. I think they were waiting, hoping that it would happen again so they would get more data or some shit.” He lets the words ring in the air, can feel everyone’s gazes on him weighing him down, pushing him further into his seat. He lets the words sink in some more before he dares to dart his eyes around to his siblings. </p><p>He lets his eyes land on Five because Five had never been one to show much emotion. He hadn’t been there when everything in their lives went to shit, or when Klaus lost the trust of every single sibling he had, even the dead one, by doing horrible, random shit while in the throes of the high whatever kind of drug he could get his hands on gave him. Klaus hopes Five might not look at him in disbelief like the others almost certainly are.</p><hr/><p>Everyone else is staring at their middlest brother in horror, meanwhile all Diego can feel is honest-to-God rage. Dad and Pogo sat there watching the whole fucking time? Their father watched his son literally be murdered by ghosts, and waited, hoping it might happen again? Diego had always hated his father, something about being adopted to be used as a violent experiment forced to kill people had turned him off, but he had mostly felt indifferent, if slightly jaded, towards Pogo. </p><p>Though that certainly seemed like it was about to change with the way this conversation was going. God, and this had all started out as Diego just being frustrated by the shitty things his sister said in a book she wrote years ago. Apparently even petty squabbles, formed mostly because he had been itching for a fight, could never be easy in this family. </p><p>“You fucking died, Klaus? And they just watched?” Diego can’t keep the horror and anger from flooding his voice of the thought of a child version of Klaus being brutally murdered, knowing that Dad was watching, and begging him for help. And Reggie just watching Klaus slowly and painfully die.</p><p>He watches Klaus’ body language like a hawk, and even though Klaus doesn’t offer more than a shrug, Diego knows in terrible, heartrending clarity that it had definitely happened.</p><p>Five breaks him from his angry, horrified, vengeance-filled thoughts. </p><p>“Would you like me to bring Pogo in for this discussion? I’m sure it would be enlightening.” </p><p>The tone of voice is oddly light even as there’s a dark glint in Five’s eyes contrasting his words that speaks of pain, torture, and revenge; certainly no good intentions for their monkey butler. It almost makes Diego worry for the poor bastard. Almost.</p><p>He sees Klaus shake his head, and hears him huff bitterly.</p><p>“It wouldn’t change anything. I’ve asked him probably a hundred times now, why he always just sat there and watched but never helped me. He never gives me a clear answer, mostly stupid Yoda type shit. Although, he told me once that I would understand when I was older. But I’m pretty sure that was horseshit too.” </p><p>Diego sees Luther nod in understanding. It was a common excuse for Pogo to give when he wanted to avoid explaining something. Like when Five had been on a bender for absorbing all the possible knowledge he could, when he was just 12 years old. He had asked Pogo ‘what the popsicle-shaped tubes in the bathroom were, and if they were popsicles, why weren’t they in the fridge, and why, when you opened them, did they push out a chunk of cotton attached to a string?’ Pogo had almost visibly aged when Five had asked him that, especially since he had been looking relatively normal and content prior to the question. </p><p>The next day Grace taught them all Sex-Ed.</p><p>Five grimaces, “Well you’re older now, surely it’s something you deserve to know. He certainly owes you some kind of explanation for his complete refusal to even keep you from being killed. It’s complete bullshit, Klaus. They wouldn’t have treated any of the rest of us like that. How does it not piss you off?” He says the last part particularly emphatically, thrusting the top portion of his whiskey bottle at Klaus to emphasize his point. A few drops of the liquor splash onto the wooden floor in front of him, but he doesn’t seem to notice.</p><p>“I know, man, believe me I know how fucked it is. But maybe we can bring him here another time, Fivey? I don’t really want to get into that shit right now, and we’re kind of already in the middle of some other family drama, as it is.” Klaus sighs, lets it out, and takes a breath, his eyes almost visibly hardening again as whatever he was remembering fades from his focus. It never leaves though. </p><p>No, Diego knows his brother well enough to know that whatever shit decided to haunt him tended to stick around, clawing into his soul and latching on, dragging him down with them. Klaus had always looked so ancient, even as a kid. As if he was physically burdened by the weight of whatever he saw. None of his siblings had particularly enjoyed looking Klaus in the eye. Not when it felt almost like he could see into your fucking soul and look through whatever shit he found in there. </p><p>Diego pulls himself back from the haunting memory of Klaus’ heavy and ancient childhood gaze, and refocuses on whatever undoubtedly horrible shit is going to be revealed by Klaus now.</p><p>“So anyway, yeah Vanya, I got high. I had to, because nothing else worked. I tried to work on my powers, like Dad said. It didn’t do anything, only led to the ghosts being able to finally murder me the way they always threatened to do.” He doesn't speak confrontationally like how they had all learned, what with being raised in a family of seven. He just states it quietly, solidly, like a fact of the universe not up for debate.</p><p>Number Two briefly wonders when his brother had grown up enough to decide not to be confrontational, he had always been a loud-mouth.</p><p> Then again, Diego thought that he had known his brother well enough to know that he used drugs to escape Hargreeves and all the horrible shit they had been put through. And although that might have been partially true, he hadn’t known that it made the ghosts go away. He didn’t know that Klaus couldn’t make the ghosts just leave him alone. But then, he had apparently also been murdered by them, so if he could have made them go away, he certainly would have prior to being murdered by them.</p><p>It’s a weighted silence that falls over them as they all collectively put the pieces together at once. </p><p>They all glance around at each other for confirmation of what they each suspected and the repressed childhood memories they connected to the story Klaus just told them. But none of them can really look at each other, or Klaus, as a terrible memory is brought to their minds, and they are forced to recall the absolutely brutal condition Klaus had arrived in one day when they were 10 years old and he had returned from a private mission a few days after their birthday.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>November 3, 1999</b>
</p><p>His eyes were entirely bloodshot, his gaze aimless and dull, as though a film of exhaustion was covering his usually vibrant and piercing eyes. He was shaking, completely reeked of piss and sweat, and was bleeding from both his ears; blood was pooling around and dripping down the fingertips of his right hand. He had been muttering incoherently to himself under his breath and hadn’t responded to any of their attempts to speak to him. It hadn’t even seemed like he <em> could </em> hear them.</p><p>Grace had looked as stressed as a robot ever could, and Diego was certain that if she had been human, she’d have been sobbing and cradling Klaus as close as physically possible. As it was, she didn’t do any of that, just kept looking Klaus over, cataloging the injuries her cool x-ray eyes found. </p><p>She was the one who had ushered Klaus inside, their father upstairs working, and Pogo (conveniently, now that they know what had happened) nowhere to be seen. She tried to hurry Klaus past the dining room where the other children had been having lunch, but Ben had always seemed to have some sort of Klaus radar, because he noticed immediately when Klaus entered the dining room, and called for their previously MIA brother. </p><p>Klaus hadn’t responded, didn’t look up, or even react like he had registered that someone was saying something. He just stood there, leaning into Mom with his right hand hanging limply at his side, and the left tightly gripping the arm she was holding him up with, his face angled downwards as he continued to whisper to himself. </p><p>Diego strained his ears to try to make out what their brother was saying, but it was just complete nonsense. Shit about getting out, and how pretty he was, as well as several remarks about making them all go away one day.</p><p>Truly creepy shit. In fact, what Klaus was muttering to himself reminded Diego of the kind of fucked up stuff he’d scrawl all over his walls.</p><p>Mom had been holding him with an arm around his waist, letting him grip as tightly as he wanted to her right arm, clearly using her other one to open the doors for them. Diego would have said she looked protective over Klaus; his siblings would have disagreed since Grace is ‘clearly just a robot, and therefore cannot actually emote.’ Fine, whatever, if Mom were human, he would describe her as having held their brother protectively, bringing him in towards her as though she was fending off threats, keeping him from any more harm. If she were human, and had the ability to emote properly, of course.</p><p>“Your brother is a little stressed out right now, my darlings. We need to let him recuperate in peace, alright? I’ll get him all set up in the infirmary, and let you know just as soon as you can visit.” She had said all of this, a little distractedly, since she was occupied with keeping constant pressure on Klaus’ arm, clearly attempting to stop or at least slow down the blood rapidly running down his fingers. </p><p>Diego wondered if it was more than his fingertips that had been injured with the amount of blood spilling out. His entire arm, maybe? With the angle their brother was holding himself at, almost completely facing downward, the blood could have originated from any higher place of their brother’s body and made its way down like it was currently doing.</p><p>Five got up from his chair, ignoring his mother, and Luther of course, asking/telling him to sit back down as he blinked over and examined Klaus closely. Diego watched as he carefully hovered his hands just above Klaus’ right arm, up over his torso, back up his neck, and gently turned his head from side to side, cradling his cheeks, as he looked at their brother’s face. </p><p>He also saw Five wince, though he had clearly been trying to restrain himself from reacting, when he tried to take a glance into Klaus’ ears. His brows had furrowed in concern as he snapped his fingers in front of Four’s face, and it was almost like Klaus couldn’t see anything, because he didn’t seem to even register the appearance of a hand in front of his face.</p><p>It was also abundantly obvious he wouldn’t respond to the noise, what with the blood clots surely forming in his ears now.</p><p>Five waves a hand, and nothing happens, so he lifts Klaus’ head up gently, Diego didn’t know Five even <em> could </em> be that gentle with anything, compelling Klaus to let him see his eyes, though there wasn’t any reaction, let alone a fight, from their brother. Although he’s staring straight forward, it’s abundantly clear that he’s not actually looking at Five, so much as staring ahead into space where Five just happened to be. </p><p>Five hums and looks at Grace suspiciously.</p><p>“This happened because of a <em> mission </em>?” He had said it in such an incredulous tone, it was painfully obvious what he thought about the truthfulness of Mom’s statement. To be honest though, Diego didn’t think his mother actually could tell a lie, usually she’d just get tight-lipped and change the subject if she wasn’t allowed to disclose the truth. Like when they asked ‘what exactly had the people they killed done that was evil, and why didn’t Dad ever sleep, and why wasn’t Mom allowed to have her own room?’ All of these questions would usually just make her get quiet before offering to bake them cookies, or suddenly reminding them that they needed to go to bed, even though they already had dessert, and still had 10 minutes until curfew.</p><p>Essentially, she tended to opt for distraction rather than outrightly lying to them.</p><p>“Unfortunately injuries are commonplace for superheroes, especially when they don’t have the backup they’re always supposed to have.” Diego thought she looked almost upset as she said that, what with the increasingly hard tone she adopted as she finished her statement. The tone of voice she had used was almost, dare he say, bitter? They didn’t often hear their mother judging something Reginald had done as being bad, usually just choosing to leave those "poor choices in judgement" (because their father didn’t make mistakes) alone, and would instead begin boasting about how wonderful and accomplished their father was. </p><p>It was almost too quick to catch, but for a moment she wasn’t smiling quite as brightly, looking increasingly distressed and angered by her son’s gruesome condition. But as quickly as it had appeared, the expression slid from her face, replaced with one of those smiles she plastered across her face that never seemed all that genuine.</p><p> If this one was even tighter and more forced-looking than normal, well Diego wasn’t going to call her out on it. He was just glad he had more proof that their mother had emotions and feelings, no matter what his dumb, mean siblings said.</p><p>“Now then dears, it is time for me to get our injured hero all set up in the infirmary so he can start the healing process. I will call you all once he is ready for visitors.” They begin to protest so she raises her voice and speaks over them, though not as harshly or cruelly as their father would.</p><p> “Seeing as it is lunchtime, and my hands are a bit full, you can all grab the sandwiches and snacks I made from the kitchen. Everything’s all ready to go, just be sure to get plates and cups, you know your father hates when there are crumbs on the rug. And no drinking from the lemonade pitcher, Five, you know better than that.”</p><p>Five raises an eyebrow and then seems to relent and accept her suggestion that it was him who was the culprit behind the saliva occasionally left on the rim of the jug. He simply nods and blinks into the kitchen with the pitcher, presumably to grab a freaking cup this time, the nasty fucker. </p><p>Grace smiled and kept hold of Klaus’ arm and waist as she essentially carried him through the doorway and down the hall, further into the house. They all sat in silence as they watched their brother be led off to areas of the house much too frequently used to be normal for other families. Especially when considering the age of the children and how the infirmary was basically a mini hospital, stocked with all sorts of things Diego had no idea how his father had obtained.</p><p>She had called for them some 3 hours later, while Pogo was teaching them Biology. They were just introduced to the chemical formula for Glycerin when Grace firmly knocked on the door and entered the room. She smiled at the children, returned Diego’s wave, and took Pogo aside, whispering with him for about a minute before he nodded and redirected his attention to the children, who had been closely watching his and Grace’s discussion.</p><p>Pogo clears his throat before taking on the tone of voice that tells them what he’s about to say is good news. “Well, children, in respect to the concern you were directing my way regarding Number Four, it seems your mother has decided your brother is in good enough condition for you to all visit him if you desire. We can resume this lesson during tomorrow’s class.” Diego and Ben stand up simultaneously, already heading towards the door with the 4 other children hot on their tails, as they follow after their mother towards the infirmary. </p><p>Pogo looks out after them with a fond smile before going about gathering the children's books to put away.</p><p>They bombard their mother with questions as they amble about behind her; inquiries about Klaus’ health, what happened to him, what was the mission, had he accomplished whatever task Dad gave to him? They were speaking over top of each other with no regard as to whether their mother was actually answering any of their questions before launching a new one.</p><p> It was, in a word, chaotic.</p><p>“Will he be okay, Mom?” Ben hadn’t been speaking up til now, just silently following after his siblings and mother, so his question cuts through the background noise that had become his other siblings’ constant questions.</p><p>Grace paused and smiled reassuringly as she answered him as she led them all into the elevator and pushed the down arrow to get to the second floor. “Darling, I am hopeful that, aside from one minor issue, your brother will make a full recovery. So long as he gets some rest and isn’t terribly active for a few days, he should be running around very soon.” </p><p>Allison frowned and furrowed her brows, “What one issue? What’s wrong with him Mom?” Her question goes unanswered as they walk down the hall and finally reach the infirmary doors. </p><p>Grace quickly guides the children in.</p><p>Once they’re all inside, she sets out to check on Klaus, checking his heart monitor, monitoring his IV drip and quietly asking him questions they don’t hear him respond to. </p><p>He looks marginally better than before, no longer looking entirely too worn-down for their typically high energy middlest brother, skin having regained some color and his eyes, while still puffy, are no longer the horrible, dull quality they were earlier.</p><p>. He’s wearing a hospital gown and is hooked up to an IV, though Diego has no idea what it’s putting in him, he only knows that his brother looks better than he had when Mom had brought him through the dining room. His arms are bandaged all the way up, presumably to his shoulder though they can only see up to his elbows due to the way the gown is baggy on him. He’s always been the boniest of all the siblings, and the gowns all had to be big enough for a one-size-fits-all scenario, so he looks almost swamped in the one he has on. Although they all must notice it, no one says anything about how small and fragile it makes Klaus look, so Diego doesn’t either.</p><p>His ears are no longer covered in blood, though he does have a wet washcloth covering his forehead, which covers his ears and seems to wrap all the way around to the back of his head. </p><p>“What’s with the washcloth, Mom?” </p><p>Despite her question, Vanya doesn’t actually look as horribly concerned as Diego feels, and he finds himself just a little mad at how put together Vanya looks, even though he knows she’s seeing the same thing as the rest of them. Their little brother is lying on the infirmary bed looking like death warmed over, but she doesn’t actually seem to be too upset about it. </p><p>Diego looks back at their mom for an answer, and he misses the way Vanya reaches into her sweater pocket and downs another pill. He doesn’t see it, and he doesn’t know, but it’s been her second today, and she’s likely to take more as the rest of the day continues.</p><p>“Well Vanya, dear, I’m afraid that has to do with the issue I was speaking about earlier.” She speaks gently and firmly, much steadier than any of them would have been able to manage given the situation, but Diego sees the way her eyes flit over to the prone form of their injured brother.</p><p> He knows she loves them. He just knows it. </p><p>“It seems your brother hit his head at some point during his...mission, and fractured his temporal bone, which  ruptured his eardrum, and caused the ear bleeding you all saw earlier. The other more copious blood loss was the result of a gash on the right side of his neck.” She pauses in her speech, looking over all her children waiting for her to finish speaking, weighing the effect her words will have on them, before deciding to continue. </p><p>“With injuries to the eardrum, it is a bit of a toss-up on whether he will recover fully”-At the horrified gasps of her children sends them a bright, reassuring smile; that is one of the best ways to comfort children after all-“However, I looked in there, and it doesn’t look like he broke any of the bones in his inner ear, so the eardrum should just heal on its own, although if it doesn’t we may have to do surgery.” She waits for the aghast reactions of her children to pass before she continues.</p><p> “For now, it appears that he can’t quite make out what we’re saying, though he does seem to recognize when someone is making a sound.” She glances over at Klaus again as she says this, her smile slipping quickly off her face with her brows furrowed in concern, before remembering her audience and sticking a smile back on her face, looking over the other children in front of her.</p><p>The kids are all atypically quiet as they look at their brother’s still, small, and oh-so fragile body, and seem to be absorbing the information presented to them. </p><p>Ben breaks the silence as he asks, “So he’s deaf now?”</p><p>The kids all look alarmed as they consider this possibility. Vanya’s lip starts trembling despite the rest of her face looking calm and put-together, it seems as if at any second tears will start dripping down her face, unbidden from her eyes, and it makes Diego’s own eyes well with tears he stubbornly keeps from falling, just from looking at her.</p><p> Besides, even if he started to tear up before he had even looked at Vanya, no one saw, and if they did, well, that was no one’s business but his own.</p><p>Grace is as quick to comfort them as she always is. “No dear, he can certainly still hear some, so he isn’t quite deaf, so much as hard of hearing for now. We won’t know exactly how much he can hear, or how much it will heal for some time, but ruptured eardrums typically heal by themselves after a few weeks.” She smiles softly when she sees Diego’s glossy-looking eyes and says, “Don’t worry children, we should be back to having our energetic bumblebee around in no time.”</p><p>“How long is ‘no time’? Because I don’t think Dad will really like the idea of Klaus just laying here, not training or anything.” Luther both looks and sounds pompous as he reminds them all of Dad, who was the reason Klaus was in here to begin with. But he also sounds nervous, like he might get in trouble for Klaus being on bedrest? </p><p>Which is entirely possible; Dad certainly might punish Luther later, saying that Luther should have better prepared his team for solo missions and that Number One is the true reason Klaus is injured. </p><p>But even if it might be mean-spirited, it was a good question, so Diego just frowns but stays silent as he waits for an answer.</p><p>They all turn as one entity to face their mother expectantly, redirecting their attention which keeps being drawn back to their catatonic brother, watching her and waiting on bated breath for an answer. Hopefully, a good one.</p><p> But then again, Klaus never really was known for his good luck.</p><p>The guy could never seem to catch a break.</p><p>Mom idly frowns as she gets a glazed over look in her eyes, like she always does when she does more computery things. Right now they watch as she calculates numbers and figures and the individual healing rates of her children, clearly trying to give them the best, most accurate estimation. She starts to blink as she receives her answer and straightens back up as she gives them all her undivided attention again.</p><p>“No more than 2 or 3 weeks I should say.” She looks solely at Luther as she smiles knowingly at him. “And as for your father, he has already agreed that however much time it will take for Klaus to heal is approved; a reward for how he made such promising progress in his abilities.” She smiles proudly as she thinks of the no-doubt great things Klaus was able to accomplish on his ‘mission’. Perhaps it will suffice Mr. Hargreeves enough that he’ll stop taking her son out of bed in the middle of the night to train, hopefully for a long while since he always returns her darling Klaus in much worse shape than he took him in.</p><p>She has tried explaining to him before that interrupting a child’s REM cycle so often and sporadically negatively affects their overall physical and mental health as well as memory retention, speed of movement, and ability to perform the physical training exercises he has them do. He simply overrode her system so she would stop explaining it to him. </p><p>Casting away her less than adoring thoughts, she softly smiles at them again before going to the closet of the infirmary, grabbing several chairs, and setting them up by Klaus’ temporary bed.</p><p>“Now then,-” Grace adjusts something on his heart monitor before turning back to the onlookers while flicking at a syringe of some sort of liquid-“ you’ve been allowed to visit as one large group today, but we don’t want any of you falling behind, so unfortunately, Mr. Hargreeves has said you will only be allowed to visit your brother in teams of two in order to keep from distracting others, and only for 30 minutes each day. Today, however, you are all allowed to keep him company for the rest of the hour. After that, you will be meeting outside for some physical training exercises.” </p><p>She turns back around to face her injured son once she sees that they don’t have any questions and leans down, inserting the needle into the bicep of his injured right arm, which Diego turns away from watching.</p><p> He catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of her brushing back his brother’s wayward curls from his forehead and planting a kiss there. He sees the tender expression on his mother’s face as she observes Klaus for a moment longer, lingering as she searches imploringly for any change in his face. Nothing happens and she huffs out a near-silent sigh before she rises back up and heads toward the door. </p><p>“You’ve got about 45 minutes, darlings, and make sure not to be late to training. It’s important to keep up one’s physique when you’re a superhero.” She waves a final goodbye and they watch as the door quietly clicks shut and they hear Grace’s heels tapping back down the hallway they came from. </p><p>Diego immediately goes back to watching over their injured brother, and decides to take the chair right next to Klaus’ bed. He pauses as he searches his other siblings’ faces for judgement before taking Klaus’ uninjured left hand in his own.</p><p> Footsteps steadily tap closer to where he’s sitting with Klaus, so he looks back up and sees Ben standing beside him, silently worrying and chewing his lip. Soon, the rest follow, with the girls on the other side of the bed, and Five leaning over slightly, brushing Klaus’ hair back from his ears so he can try to peer into them again. Luther, however, stands at the foot of the bed solemnly, and it’s almost dizzying to watch how quickly and sporadically Number One’s face switches between emotions. His face starts off harsh and judgemental as he keeps a silent vigil over his siblings, before softening and becoming more sorrowful when he brings himself to look at how awful and beat up Klaus looks, before going to calculating when he worries about what his father will say about how he’s coddling his brother and back to harsh as the cycle starts over again. </p><p>If Diego had to guess, he would say Luther is trying to figure out why Dad would send Klaus on a solo mission. Not only had this been the first solo mission of the Academy, but it was also the first mission where Klaus had been put in any position of real authority or responsibility. And besides that, everyone knew how much Dad disliked and ridiculed their rambunctious middle brother, so why would Reginald choose Klaus to go by himself? It just didn’t make any sense. </p><p>And Diego knows everyone else is wondering the same thing by the increasingly troubled expressions all of them are wearing.</p><p> Luther and Vanya look confused, Seven because she didn’t really know how their missions are supposed to work so she probably isn’t too sure about what’s going on. And Luther probably because he wanted to be the first solo mission and has no idea why their father would send Klaus over him.</p><p>Allison and Five look angry, for all that both of them have readily accepted Dad’s training regimen long ago, neither of them were fans of the way dad truy didn’t seem to care about Klaus’ well-being. Even in training, Hargreeves would punish them if he thought they were holding back on Klaus, and it was even worse when he thought Klaus himself was slacking off. </p><p>He had never hit any of the rest of the kids with his cane.</p><p>Ben looked like he was in pain, sort of like he embodied all the pain Klaus was in right now. He was holding his stomach and groaning slightly under his breath, even as he put more and more force behind the pressure of his hand on his belly. But he laid his other hand on Klaus’ shoulder, offering comfort and a steady presence, probably hoping to ground their brother to this world instead of wherever he was in his head right now.</p><p>Diego was pissed off and scared, though he’d never admit something like that out loud, especially not in front of his siblings. They’d probably fight over each other for who got the first mean taunt in before he even finished his sentence. </p><p>He hadn’t ever seen Klaus quite this fucked up. Sure, his brother never really looked okay these days, and he had walked in on his brother upending vodka down his gullet more times than most other 11 year olds would have at this age. And Diego knew how often Klaus would wake up screaming in the middle of the night, even if he no longer heard it quite as clearly. He used to go to Four’s bedroom and try to wake him up so he wouldn’t be stuck being scared like that, but then Dad started the project of soundproofing Klaus’ room and started punishing them if they tried to comfort Klaus at night.</p><p>All in all, Diego hated the way Dad treated Klaus. But he had stopped trying to intervene, too many punishments and the way Klaus had begged him to stop so that he wouldn’t get hurt on Four’s behalf anymore had been as heartbreaking as it had been a relief. </p><p>Diego always hated going into the tank, and that was Dad’s go-to punishment for him.</p><p>He’s jerked out of his depressing thoughts by Five’s angry snarl and loud voice.</p><p>“It was a death wish, sending Klaus out on his own like that. There’s no way Dad thought he was ready to go out alone, he calls Klaus a disappointing wimp pretty much everyday. Anyone could have guessed how it would end. Dad’s not an idiot, he knew how Klaus would end up. He just didn’t give a shit.” Five’s voice is harsh, condemning and cursing Reginald for how neglectfully he treated his own son. Five sounds really angry, much angrier even, than he always got when Dad told him time travel was a fool’s dream and that he would be punished if he ever attempted to do it without Father’s permission.</p><p>Apparently that doesn’t sit right with Luther though, to literally no one’s surprise.</p><p>“Dad did what he thought was best. Obviously, he was testing Klaus’ ability to serve as a member of this Academy. And apparently he failed. It’s not Dad’s fault that Klaus is so weak and bad at fighting. Heck, he’s not even good at using his powers, Five, and he was literally born with them. That isn’t Dad’s fault, it’s Klaus’ for being a slacker..” Luther shakes his head as he adamantly refuses any blame on their father’s part, needing to show loyalty even if Reginald isn’t in the room.</p><p>Diego turns sharply to face him, half-rising out of his chair as he defiantly says, “Maybe, but D-D-Dad knew he wasn’t ready, Luther. He sent K-Klaus out there, knowing he would probably d-d-d-die. Hell, he was probably even hoping for it” </p><p>Five nods sagely.</p><p>“The one fool-proof way to get rid of the Academy’s ‘weak link’ without anyone asking too many questions.” </p><p>“Are you seriously trying to say that Dad’s trying to kill Klaus?”  Luther swivels his head as he casts disbelieving and angry stares at his brothers’ assessment of their father. “That doesn’t make any sense, Five. Dad’s the good guy, and he would never want to hurt any of us like that. You guys have no idea what you’re talking about.” </p><p>“No, you don’t know what Da-”</p><p>“Guys, can we please just be here for Klaus right now? Us arguing about what in the world Dad was thinking isn’t going to help him get better.” Ben’s quiet voice, even as he groans under the effort of keeping his stomach portal thing firmly closed, once again pierces through their veil of anger and resentment towards each other, applying a soothing balm to their hurt egos. </p><p>As Diego breaks his stare-down with Luther, he sees Allison nodding, agreeing with what Ben had said. Well, at least she wasn’t technically on Luther’s side. So Diego and Five share a look, silently agreeing to drop the topic. For now.</p><p>Luther heaves a big, patronizing huff and finally sits down in the provided chair at Klaus’ feet.</p><p>They all sit there in worried, tense silence until Pogo comes on the P.A. system and announces it’s time to go back to training.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>They are brought out of the memory by Klaus awkwardly clearing his throat. “Look okay, it happened like 20 years ago, I’m over it.” He looks at Vanya, who looks right on the verge of tears, all of the fight having left her when Klaus revealed that what they had all thought was an impressive solo mission, turned out to be just another torture tactic of their Father’s that ended with Klaus being murdered by ghosts.</p><p>“Klaus, that happened so long ago, why didn’t you tell anyone?” Her voice breaks as she speaks, and Klaus cringes at the raw grief in her voice.</p><p>He stays silent as he glances back at Five’s face, and it’s more emotion than he thinks he’s ever seen the old man express before. It’s full of anger and a bloodthirsty need for revenge, which is comforting in its familiarity, but there’s also regret, grief and concern there. Klaus had hoped that by choosing to look at only Five’s face, he would be spared the disbelieving looks from his siblings, and although there certainly isn’t any suspicion on Five’s face, the raw unbarred emotion that does show through hurts almost as badly as he had imagined the scornful disbelief would have. </p><p>Klaus once again gets the urge, the need, to look to Ben for reassurance that he can do this, that he can face at least some of the demons of his past, but again he is reminded only of the brother that he well and truly lost just a few short weeks ago. He decides to answer Vanya’s question as honestly as he can, no matter how it might hurt his siblings. </p><p><em> They deserve to know, Klaus, </em>says the encouraging voice of his ghost brother in his head.</p><p>“I know,” he says out loud. He takes a shuddering breath before finally speaking.</p><p>“You wouldn’t have believed me.” Silence reigns for all of 2 seconds before a cacophony of protests ring out.</p><p>“<em> What? </em> Are you seriou-”</p><p>“Klaus what the fuck, of course we-”</p><p>“Dude, if you seriously don’t think we-”</p><p>“You could have come to me, Klaus, I would have lis-”</p><p>“You’re probably right.”</p><p>Klaus’ head whips up at Luther’s admission, while the rest of his siblings look at him in horror, absolutely aghast at what he just said.</p><p>“Luther, are you fucking serious right now? Why would you even say horrible shit like that?” Diego turns aggressively to face Luther, as their Number One continues to remain standing, leaning against the arm of the chair that Diego sits in. </p><p>Luther glances down at Diego with a sad look on his face.</p><p>“Because it’s true, Diego. I wouldn’t have believed him if he said that Dad purposely killed him during individual training-” he looks back at Klaus with a grim expression on his face-“ and Klaus knows that, he’s not stupid.” He looks incredibly guilty and regretful as he continues to speak over the angry shouts and insults of his siblings.</p><p>“Look, I turned him away enough times after he left, that I honestly can’t imagine him coming to me for help for anything, even if it was just to listen to what he had to say, and he definitely wouldn’t have come to me for any sort of emotional support.” He sounds so sad, like he regrets how things have turned out and he looks away from their watchful gazes, as he takes a minute to collect himself. He turns back to them, this time just looking at Allison, returning her sad, beseeching expression.</p><p>“Anytime he showed up to the Academy afterwards, no matter the weather, I’d tell him to get lost. One time I caught him climbing up Five’s fire escape to get in. It was in the middle of a horrible blizzard, record-low temperatures, like a foot of snow. I told him to leave, and when he kept asking, begging really, for me to let him in, I took his hands off the windowsill, picked him up and dumped him off the side of the fire escape.” The tears in Luther’s eyes are visibly welling up, even as he keeps them from falling.</p><p> “I didn’t even look back to make sure he was okay when he fell. I had no idea if he was injured or if he broke anything, I just locked the window, and left.” His voice breaks with this final admission and Luther has to turn away from Allison’s horrified stare, the accusatory weight of it just too much for him to withstand, and covers his face as the tears are slowly released.</p><p>“He did.” Diego’s voice is low and quiet as he speaks.</p><p> Luther turns a careful glance to his brother sitting beside him.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Diego doesn’t look at him, or anyone else, as he speaks, even avoiding Klaus’ pleading gaze. Klaus really does not want Diego to finish the story, but they never purposely interrupt Diego when he speaks. It’s hard enough for Diego sometimes to get his words out, he doesn’t need to be fighting people for the chance to speak at the same time.</p><p>“He did. Break something, that is.” He quickly looks up from the ground, leveling Luther with an almost-hateful, but definitely resentful glare. </p><p>“Broke a fucking rib,-” at the confused look on Luther’s face his frown turns mean and loathing ,and he decides to spell it out for their brother- “he showed up at my place after you kicked him out. I didn’t get home till late though, cuz that was when I was still in the Police Academy.” </p><p> “That’s probably why he went to you in the first place, didn’t know if he’d fucking make it if he was ouside waiting for me in a goddamned blizzard. He wouldn’t tell me how he broke a rib, I figured he just got mugged again and d-d-didn’t want to t-tell me.” Diego’s mean sneer drops as he firmly shuts his mouth, now just a firm, angry frown in its place as he tries to regain control of his speech.</p><p>“But it was you. The whole time I was searching the city to find which asshole I had to pay a visit to, and it was you.” Number Two takes a shaky breath as he tries to reign in his volume as well, which had grown to an accusatory shout directed at his ‘older’ brother. </p><p>He slowly stands up, before turning to face Luther.</p><p>“You want to, or me?” Despite who he’s facing, he apparently directs his question to Five, because he’s the one who responds.</p><p>“You’re closer. You have it.” Diego nods before looking Luther dead in the eyes, looking put together and resigned, like the calm before a storm.</p><p>He reels his fist back and punches Luther straight in the side of his jaw. Luther stumbles back, crying out as he holds his face in one large, gloved hand. Diego doesn’t look anywhere near satisfied as he walks over to the bar, grabs the bottle Five had been pouring from, and takes a long swig, before putting it back down and taking a seat next to his younger-older brother.</p><p>Klaus looks at Luther, aghast at the physical violence committed in his name. He quickly stands up, freeing himself from Allison’s arm cage, and runs to Luther, who is hissing in pain and holding his jaw.</p><p>“Holy shit dude, are you okay? Did he fucking break your jaw?” Klaus gently takes Luther’s hand away from his face and feels the already swelling and horribly red spot gingerly. He clicks his tongue in distaste at how quickly the injury is swelling, before letting out a slight sound of relief.</p><p>“It’s not broken, though, so that’s good at least.”</p><p>“How do you know?” Allison pipes up from behind them.</p><p>Klaus looks back at her with a grin. </p><p>“Well, I did break my jaw that one time, remember? This, luckily, doesn’t feel like that did.” He briefly reassesses Luther’s face injury before adding, “Although, I’d probably still get it checked out by mom just to be sure.” Luther carefully nods. </p><p>Klaus marginally backs up from his brother’s personal space, before directing his attention toward Diego and Five, who are living it up at the bar, feeling no apparent guilt whatsoever.</p><p>“What the hell, Diego? Why’d you do that? I thought we talked about expressing ourselves with words, not violence, remember? You’re gonna have to take a star off your good boy chart for today.” Klaus shakes a stern finger at him, almost perfectly mimicking his mother’s mannerisms as he does so.</p><p>“I do remember, buddy, it’s just that there are really no words to describe how much I wanted to deck Luther right then, and honestly losing a star is more than fucking worth it.” Diego slowly spins his barstool as he takes sips out of the bottle, breaking the eye contact he had with Klaus as he speaks.</p><p>“Seconded. ” Five raises his glass up slightly, before taking another sip out of it. “In fact, why don’t you go ahead and preemptively remove one of mine? I’m sure it will be warranted soon enough.” He sends a threatening look toward Luther, making clear exactly who the offense would be against.</p><p>Klaus shakes his head, disheartened as he says, “You can’t just fucking punch someone because they made you mad, you motherfucking psychopaths.” Five lowers the glass and gives him a sharp look.</p><p>“No Klaus, we aren’t going to tolerate that kind of fucking behavior anymore. No matter how you put it, it was wrong of him to treat you like that.”</p><p>“Yeah, he threw you off a fucking fire escape Klaus, from like 3 stories up.” Diego gives his spooky brother a hard stare, daring him to deny that it was an actual problem that warranted action.</p><p>And that’s why Klaus avoids looking him in the eye as he says “I’m okay now, Diego, and besides, one broken rib? I used to get that on like a monthly basis living on the streets. It’s fine.” </p><p>“But not from family, Klaus.” Vanya finally cuts in, dragging Klaus’ attention back to her as she continues, “Look, that’s how people who don’t have a regard for your life or your wellbeing behave. And family shouldn’t act like that. You really should care more about yourself and how you’re treated.” </p><p>Klaus raises an eyebrow, a certain ghost’s eerily similar words coming to mind as Vanya almost verbatim repeats what Ben used to tell him when he let himself get beat up in alleys, back when he was still just a homeless junkie whore. He ruefully grins.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s what Ben used to say, too.” </p><p>He lets the mournful silence his brother’s name brings, linger for only a few seconds before lifting it by saying, “Look, that’s not even what we were talking about. Luther’s morally dubious actions aside, we were talking about you, Vanya.” </p><p>No one else starts talking, so it seems like the fire that had been fueling this entire argument with Vanya has died down. Klaus sighs as he turns from facing his asshole brothers at the bar, to looking at his smallest sister, who is still standing in the middle of the sitting area.</p><p>He ambles up to Vanya and takes one of her hands in his. As Klaus looks into his sister’s gaze, he can’t help but notice how much different she is now than she had been before. Her eyes are back to their normal deep brown, but while prior to their adventures she couldn’t really maintain eye contact, he notices that she has no qualms about doing so now, as she maintains his gaze almost challengingly in the face of the argument being brought back to focus on her. </p><p>He smiles approvingly at her defiance as he begins to study the rest of the changes in his sister’s face. She’s definitely gained some color in her skin, although whether that was just from being the focus of everyone’s collective attention or not he couldn’t tell. He belatedly also notices that she’s wearing some sort of lip balm, making her lips look more pink. He knows as well as he knows himself that she would never have worn even the slightest bit of makeup casually before all of the Apocalypses happened, she’d be too self-conscious.</p><p>All in all, she looks healthy, happy, and confident; and honestly that’s what these past few months have all been about. They had treated her so horribly, spent years removing her from the family, and chipping away the small amounts of self-esteem she tried to gather for herself. She knew as well as the rest of them did, what a tremendous task it would be to try to change the unhealthy and abusive relationships they had all formed with one another. </p><p>But they tried. All the members of the previous Academy had dedicated themselves to trying to be more understanding, sympathetic, and less selfish, especially when it came to Vanya. </p><p>Klaus could also honestly say that the determination to build Vanya up instead of tearing her down like they had been, hadn’t just come from a place of wanting to prevent any more Apocalypses (Apocali? Apocalypsi?). He genuinely just wanted to see his funky little sister happy and comfortable with herself for once. The only times in their childhood Four can recall of Vanya being happy like a kid should be, were when she had finally worked through a difficult piece of music, or the memorable occasion right before she left when she got her letter of acceptance to a performing arts school in the mail.</p><p> And during those occasions she had been so happy it was impossible not to celebrate with her. While she was usually calm, reserved, and almost silent, Klaus remembers the incredibly loud, high-pitched squeal she had released from her new bedroom upstairs. </p><p>Remembering how happy Vanya has been lately, and how far she’s come in feeling included as a member of the family, Klaus feels his anger from before completely disappear. Looking at her healthy, determined, round little face sparks him into realising that this argument isn’t worth it. Who fucking cares if she admits that she screwed them over or not? Everyone knows she said some truly horrible shit, and besides, they’ve all already forgiven Vanya. They’ve moved on. And in the grand scheme of things, Klaus would much rather have her smiling at him and walking around like she doesn’t need to apologize for existing, than to have her admit she was wrong.</p><p>He decides to extend an olive branch, a way for this whole conversation to just drop. A distraction, if you will.</p><p>“And speaking of you, V, I am immensely impressed with how firm you were being with our lovely Number Two over there. Tell me, did you use any of the tips I taught you to use when you’re in an argument with them?” Klaus grasps her left hand more firmly between them as he puts his other hand on his hip and angles himself to the side, playfully raising an eyebrow and grinning. </p><p>Vanya looks a little thrown-off by the sudden topic change, but decides to take his distraction for the escape it is, as she returns not-quite-as-playfully, “Yup, even mentioned bondage like you suggested.” She looks to the side, where Diego is sitting grumpily with quickly reddening cheeks, and grins slightly even though her face is definitely just as pink as their brother’s.</p><p>Klaus coos and releases her hand in order to give a little applause for her.</p><p>“Marvelous! And did you work in a little Batman joke too?” He gives her his full attention, making sure she understands how important and vital to her argument the addition of a Batman insult is. </p><p>He watches over Vanya’s shoulder, as Allison snorts and quickly, ashamedly, covers her mouth even though it does nothing to hide the grin she’s wearing. </p><p>Diego’s reaction is much louder and more obvious.</p><p>“Hey! That was you? I fucking knew Vanya’d never say shit like that!” </p><p>Klaus and Vanya both elect to not respond to Diego’s comment and side-eye each other instead before bursting into giggles, snorts, and guffaws over how defensive and upset their brother sounds. The others join in soon enough, except for Diego who decides to stalk out of the room, muttering something about helping Mom with her chores. </p><p>Once they’ve recovered from their little laughing fit, Klaus decides the tension is sufficiently broken and he can now safely end the discussion. He smiles at Vanya reassuringly before speaking.</p><p>“Look Van, we love you okay? I love you, those assholes love you, and honestly, what’s not to love? But the book hurt. It hurt a lot. Shit, even Ben was upset when he read it.” He placatingly puts his hands up when she starts to look irritated again. “But that doesn’t mean you have to regret it. If you’ve heard what we’ve said about how awful it was to read and how it affected us and you still don’t regret writing it? That’s completely okay. You had been treated terribly since you were a kid by the assholes you wrote about, and you were angry when you wrote it. So you don’t need to regret writing it. If that’s really the way you feel, or felt, then alright man, own it.” </p><p>Vanya looks at him consideringly, probably wondering when the insult is coming. Instead, he wraps his arms around her shoulders and tugs her into a hug.</p><p>He feels her arms slowly come up and wrap around his waist, and he smiles because hugs? The best thing ever fucking invented. He lets them stay like that for just a couple more seconds before pulling away and trying to give her a facial expression that shows how honest he’s being. </p><p>He doesn’t think he quite succeeds because he sees the concerned look everyone is now casting his way, which isn’t how people normally react to a normal-looking expression. </p><p>Oh well.</p><p>“But, if you ever feel like having another discussion about this, being more receptive to criticism about what you wrote, or even saying something like ‘I was right, try to change my mind’, then you can come find me and I’ll try my best to get you to see things our way. Deal?” Klaus holds out his hand and waits for her to shake it as she looks down and to the side, apparently considering her next move. </p><p>She has a firm set to her jaw as she nods and shakes his hand.</p><p>“Deal.”</p><p>Five breathes out a sigh of relief and says “Thank God, finally.” He blinks out of the room, taking his martini with him. Based on the “Oh, Shit!” they hear from Diego, Klaus would guess that Five reappeared in the kitchen.</p><p>Klaus watches as Allison once again rises from her chair and comes over to bring Vanya in for a hug. He can also hear her whispering something to their sister as they embrace each other. </p><p>He turns to look at Luther, who is still standing next to the armchair, albeit with a considerably more awkward energy than he had before. He starts to turn back to looking at his sisters when he hears Luther clear his throat, causing Klaus to look back up at him.</p><p>“Um, hey Klaus, can we talk for a second?” Luther fidgets, nervously rubbing his neck as he speaks, and shifting his weight back and forth. Klaus furrows his eyebrows and cocks his head slightly to the side in confusion, but he eventually nods slowly and uncertainly before making his way back to Luther.</p><p>“What’s up, man?” He makes sure to give his brother his undivided attention as well as keeping his body language as open as possible, hoping that it will make him a little happier and less nervous.</p><p>“...I-well, uh-” Luther keeps starting to speak then apparently thinks better of it and cuts himself off, but Klaus decides to keep his focus on his big brother until he can find the words he’s looking for. Eventually, Luther takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes for a second, then opens them, seeming more determined than before.</p><p>“What I did was horrible. Throwing you off a fire escape? That’s what you do to someone trying to hurt you, not your brother who was just looking for shelter from a snowstorm. And not just that, but all the other times I tossed you out of the Academy just because I thought you would steal something.” He crosses his arms as he frowns sadly and speaks firmly and emphatically. </p><p>“You didn’t deserve that, Klaus. And even if you did decide to take some stuff, it’s not like Dad was using it, all of the decorative crap he hoarded was never used. And honestly, I’d prefer you taking it and using it to feed yourself or find a place to sleep for the night, than for whatever you find to just sit here and gather dust.” He puts a hand to his forehead as he considers his words.</p><p>“I don’t think I acted that way because I actually cared that you were swiping Dad’s stuff. I think I just did it because I was mad at you, all of you, for leaving.” He huffs an angry breath at remembering how horrible he was to his siblings when they first came back. “And it’s not an excuse, it was really shitty of me to act that way, to hurt you like that. And I’m really sorry, Klaus. It was mean and petty of me and I knew you didn’t deserve to be treated like garbage, and I did it anyway. I am so sorry that I hurt you, Klaus; as kids, when you were homeless, during the first Apocalypse even. You don’t deserve that.”</p><p>Klaus is honestly thrown off guard, he doesn’t really know how he’s supposed to act in this situation. Because yeah, it hurt like a bitch to land on solid ice from three stories up, and it sucked balls having to wait for Diego to open the door to Al’s in the middle of a blizzard. But he hadn’t died. The fall didn’t kill him, and he managed to make it to Diego’s and recover there for a few days before he had to go find his next hit. So while Luther throwing him out a window was pretty awful, it wasn’t the end of the world, and although Klaus was bitter about it, he had almost been expecting it at the time. </p><p>Then again, it was also basically terrifying having Luther choke him out and throw him across the room. Hell, sometimes Klaus still has nightmares about it, it’s one of the reasons Klaus is always quick to defuse a situation when Luther is involved. Klaus is definitely still scared of him, but he doesn’t really like the idea of Luther beating himself up over something that they couldn’t change and that ultimately turned out fine.</p><p>So yeah, Klaus really didn’t know how he was supposed to react.</p><p>“Hey, it’s okay big guy, I’m fine now, and honestly I was expecting the fire escape thing. You didn’t scare me or anything then, okay?” </p><p>That was apparently the wrong thing to say, judging by Luther’s horribly depressed  expression. Guy looked about a millisecond away from bursting into tears. </p><p>“You expected it? You knew I was going to do that to you?” His voice breaks as he speaks and Kaus internally freaks out, because he had meant to reassure his brother that it hadn’t bothered him that much, but he apparently caused more distress? And historically speaking, distress and Luther don’t really mix well, especially not for others around him.</p><p>It was times like these that Klaus <em> really </em> wished Ben were still around. He would know how Klaus was supposed to act, and what to say to help placate his giant brother. </p><p>“No, no, man. That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean, like, that I knew you were going to do that, I just meant that I knew you’d keep me out of the Academy, that’s all. And hey, I can’t blame you, right? I mean I was always breaking in there and trying to steal Reggie’s shit. I would’ve kept me out too.” Luther looks marginally more put together after he says that, so Klaus assumes he’s in the clear and had accidentally said the right thing.</p><p> Luther however, does still look heartbroken as he studies Klaus’ face. When he apparently doesn’t find whatever he’s looking for, he looks more bothered and upset than sad.</p><p>“Klaus, it’s okay for you to be angry. You know that, right? I mean, I know that for whatever reason you’re not, but it is okay for you to have feelings and thoughts about how I treated you,, Klaus.” Klaus feels himself become more confused by the conversation than he already was. Which was a lot. Does Luther want him to be pissed at him? And of course Klaus knows it’s okay to be angry, he knows several people that are angry on a daily basis.</p><p>“Yeah? I know it’s okay to be angry, Luther. Hell, Five and Diego are almost constantly angry and I’ve never said anything about it to them.” Klaus decides a joke is exactly what he needs to get himself out of this weird conversation, and laughs as he tries to throw an arm over his brother’s shoulder. He doesn’t quite reach and Luther doesn’t laugh along, he just looks even more troubled.</p><p>“No, Klaus. I meant that it’s okay to be angry for yourself. I hurt you, Klaus. Multiple times. You can be angry that I did that to you, and it would be okay. It would be completely justified, honestly. I would be angry if one of my brothers threw me off a set of stairs from several stories up.” </p><p>Klaus maintains his silence. This had always been something that Ben tried to get him to accept. He had said that being angry about how someone treated you was a sign that you cared about and valued yourself, and that it was concerning that Klaus never seemed to hold his own wellbeing in much regard. Ben said it almost seemed like another form of self-harm for Klaus to employ. </p><p>Ben needed to keep his nosy ghostly butt out of his personal  fucking business. </p><p>God, he misses him.</p><p>Once he realizes that Klaus isn’t going to respond any time soon, Luther sighs and gently pats him on the back.</p><p>“Just...think about it, okay? I want you to care about yourself, Klaus.” And he waltzes out of the room. </p><p>Now alone in the living room, his sisters apparently having snuck out while he had been busy getting emotionally dissected by Luther, he slumps onto the armchair, slouching in the seat. </p><p>Klaus has a lot to think about.</p><p>
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